Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average • Hacker News Board

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#211

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 3:22 AM UTC

shoes_for_thee wrote: post #73

ixtli wrote: post #17

As an anecdote, I've lived the majority of my life in America (born and raised middle class on the east coast in a wealthy area) and if I was tasked with writing an account of my time here it would be focused around one thing: alienation. American life is atomized and consistently getting more so. For anyone who sits around and thinks about why people are the way they are here I highly encourage you to consider that…

> (Americans fetishize a sort of "rugged individualism" where you alone can solve every problem you're faced with or else it's not a real problem) Nearly any attempt paint American Culture with broad strokes is going to fail.. but using absolute terms like you're doing here A) is wildly inaccurate, and B) negatively portrays a pretty neutral personal ideology. I value individualism for the same reasons I devalue conf…

[deleted]

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#212

Post by jriot » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 3:24 AM UTC

MiroF wrote: post #70

ixtli wrote: post #17

As an anecdote, I've lived the majority of my life in America (born and raised middle class on the east coast in a wealthy area) and if I was tasked with writing an account of my time here it would be focused around one thing: alienation. American life is atomized and consistently getting more so. For anyone who sits around and thinks about why people are the way they are here I highly encourage you to consider that…

Guys, you need to move the frick out of the suburbs. They're soul-killing. Cities are also atomized, but not to this extent. They're vibrant, booming, the schools are fine/good, and in my opinion, far worth the cut to house size.

Cities are the wrong direction, people need to move out to the country, spread out. Be out in nature, hunt, fish, gather; not just for a hike. Cities are soul-crushing.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#213

Post by wolco » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 3:36 AM UTC

jostylr wrote: post #172

snarf21 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also why a lot of spouses pass soon after the other. They lose hope and the reason to get out of bed each morning. I keep assuming that as jobs are automated away that we are going to have more people who can do work like visiting elderly people. It also can more than pay for itself by keeping people on their medication regimens and preventing costly hospital visits.

A big hope of the UBI movement is that it will "pay" people to take care of one another in a way that our usual monetary transfer for services rendered simply can't handle well. That is, someone taking care of their parent is not going to be paid for that service in our economy, but with a UBI, it allows one to get that economic support without it being a usual "job". The work of maintaining genuine social relationsh…

UBI will create the conditions for more suicides. Work can create purpose.

UBI alone would strengthen the family unit and reduce external relationships.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#214

Post by war1025 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 3:37 AM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #138

merpnderp wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just get to know your neighbors and make an effort to spend time with them, even if it's just a 15 minute chat after work. I've made the effort and am now on weekly hanging out terms with nearly 20 people in my neighborhood. And that's literally just the people within a short bike ride of my place.

All the neighbors are working and few are open to socializing. People are way too busy nowadays.

I've found that "busy" people aren't often actually as busy as they say. What it really means is that they don't prioritize you in their life.

If someone is interested in doing something, they find a way. The trick is to find the people that are actually interested in being part of your life.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#215

Post by war1025 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 3:39 AM UTC

brlewis wrote: post #159

twoheadedboy wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely disagree. I don't think humans are meant to live in cities. Something about being around that many people and ongoings makes me and from what I can tell a lot of other people, on edge so to speak. I grew up in a suburb and it was not at all isolating. We had close communities and nearby family. I was friends with kids on my block and had freedom to explore and be independent. I would say technology is what…

Does your first paragraph apply to smaller cities like Boston?

As someone from the Midwest, I'm very amused by your categorization of Boston as a "smaller city".

Edit:

For reference, this [1] was the "big city" to me growing up.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_City,_Iowa

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#216

Post by smegger001 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 3:44 AM UTC

anbop wrote: post #165

snarf21 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also why a lot of spouses pass soon after the other. They lose hope and the reason to get out of bed each morning. I keep assuming that as jobs are automated away that we are going to have more people who can do work like visiting elderly people. It also can more than pay for itself by keeping people on their medication regimens and preventing costly hospital visits.

Why consume economic output to visit elderly people? Why not create societal structures so that elderly people have relationships like the 90 year old Italian men I see in the local park who smoke and yell at each other all day?

Bluntly put because our society would rather not think about age and dying. So the baby boomers thought they would live forever and built retirement home and assisted living facilities to shove their parents into once they became inconvenient and/or reminders of mortality, now they are the ones being moved in there and all of the support system (social, community, familial levels) of previous generations have almost all gone away. Building new ones would require a change in society and its values and that is a hard slow and expensive thing to change.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#217

Post by dreit1 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 3:55 AM UTC

jriot wrote: post #212

MiroF wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guys, you need to move the frick out of the suburbs. They're soul-killing. Cities are also atomized, but not to this extent. They're vibrant, booming, the schools are fine/good, and in my opinion, far worth the cut to house size.

Cities are the wrong direction, people need to move out to the country, spread out. Be out in nature, hunt, fish, gather; not just for a hike. Cities are soul-crushing.

Agree, lived in Tokyo, San Francisco, Kentucky and visited many cities. Small towns with “nothing to do” are the places for real camaraderie

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#218

Post by volkl48 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 3:55 AM UTC

cylinder wrote: post #208

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents lived around all of their siblings. They're close, they make a point of seeing each other regularly. My generation? We all live in different states. I worry once my parents are gone, that the fabric of my family will no longer exist, because nobody puts the work into keeping us all together. When we do see eachother, it's because we have a meeting point (parent's home) and a holiday (e.g., Christmas) or so…

The hustler culture indicts us to a life of packing up and moving across the country just for a marginally better job offer or degree or cheaper mansions. You see this even on comment threads here discussing where to live in the US. People "shop" for the best city right now to move to because it has cheaper housing or taxes or whatever. Scan the entire thread and you don't see being close to family or community roots…

I'll also mention that when much of the population is transient like that, it'll even affect the people who aren't.

Most everyone I knew growing up doesn't live where we grew up anymore. They're scattered everywhere. Much of my family that used to live there has moved on too.

I was one of the last to officially leave (around 25) and there wasn't much left in my "hometown" for me when I left, because few people I knew were still nearby anyway.

To be clear, I'm not talking about rural Kansas. That's a story from suburban New Jersey, about an hour outside of NYC.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#219

Post by 0942v8653 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 3:59 AM UTC

stirfrykitty wrote: post #71

jackcosgrove wrote: post #38

Many Americans own a lot of idle property. There is a problem now where baby boomers want to age in place in their suburban homes, which locks younger people out of those properties. However these suburban homes have huge yards by global standards, that could easily support the construction of grandparent/in-law structures. It seems like one solution is for the suburban elderly to, maybe with their children's assista…

There is no way I want to take care of anyone other than my own children, which is enough. I have three children in my house, which is more than enough. Caregivers also spend tons of their own money on care giving, plus trips to the doctor, dentist, etc. I already don't get enough down time. I also want to actually retire on time and do what I want to do, not babysit the elderly. I don't want or need the hassle of be…

When you are elderly, who will take care of you?

> In addition, my children WILL NOT be living at home until they are 30 ...

I agree with you here -- independence is the ideal. But for reasons beyond the individual's control this is not always possible: misfortune, ill health, age. The community has a responsibility to take care of those within it who are struck by these things.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#220

Post by 0942v8653 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 4:08 AM UTC

cylinder wrote: post #206

ixtli wrote: post #17

As an anecdote, I've lived the majority of my life in America (born and raised middle class on the east coast in a wealthy area) and if I was tasked with writing an account of my time here it would be focused around one thing: alienation. American life is atomized and consistently getting more so. For anyone who sits around and thinks about why people are the way they are here I highly encourage you to consider that…

They're even alone as babies. Americans have this weird obsession with putting babies to sleep in separate rooms as soon as possible, including newborns, as if this develops some rugged independence. All the research (and common sense) shows they need to sleep as close to the mother as safely possible. Yet this mentality persists. And then the move to kick them out of the house at 18, why?

18 is a good age to begin the transition from being dependent on parents to bearing responsibilities themselves. Keeping the kids in the house too much longer than that can make it more difficult for them to adapt.